Military testing Afghan language translation mobiles for US troops

Looks like the Pentagon is pushing the envelope when it comes to speech …

"How can we communicate?" the alien being asks Captain James Kirk in a vintage edition of Star Trek. "My thoughts . . . you are hearing them? This is interesting."

Kirk can hear them because he's got a handy little voice translation gizmo, just perfect for communication with extraterrestrials, and apparently an inspiration for the Pentagon. The government is now testing something like this gadget to aid US forces in Afghanistan.

One of the biggest challenges for troops in that region is the language barrier. To overcome this problem, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been evaluating a trio of new, portable handheld devices that record and then transmit voice translations of that country's two most popular languages.

How do they work? Project manager Craig Schlenoff explains: "An English speaker talks into the phone. Automatic speech recognition distinguishes what is said and generates a text file that software translates to the target language. Text-to-speech technology converts the resulting text file into an oral response in the foreign language. This process is reversed for the foreign language speaker."

The users can both speak into one device, or call each other on their own copies of the handheld.

Afghanistan has two official languages: Pashto and Dari—respectively spoken by 35 and 50 percent of the populace. Then there are the Turkic languages: Uzbek and Turkmen, spoken by another 11 percent. And a small but not insignificant portion of the country speak Baluchi, Pashai, or Nuristani.

These TRANSTAC devices ("spoken language communication and TRANSlation system for TACtical use") are intended to fill the enormous communications gap that US forces presently face. Local human translators are in short supply, and take huge risks when offering their services.

"And, sometimes, translators may have ulterior motives," warns Brian Weiss of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which is running the program for DARPA.

In the past, soldiers have tried to make do with microphones hooked up to software empowered portable computers. But those arrangements are pretty clunky. The Pentagon tested voice devices shown in this YouTube video which indeed look like handheld mobile phones. So far they can hear and understand Pashto, Dari, and Iraqi Arabic.

There are already a wide variety of speech-to-speech translators out there, but these DARPA machines are clearly pushing the envelope in terms of functionality. At least that's the hope. NIST has tried these gadgets out in about thirty situations, including vehicle check points, building inspections, and Afghani-US military training events.

The exchanges have been filmed, and a team of judges are evaluating the results.

Matthew Lasar
Matt writes for Ars Technica about media/technology history, intellectual property, the FCC, or the Internet in general. He teaches United States history and politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Emailmatthew.lasar@arstechnica.com//Twitter@matthewlasar